Circles Within Circles
by MonstersInside
Summary: S14. The team rush to save the killer's captives and with Morgan and Ellie's lives in the balance, the last thing they need are added twists. But they will have to deal with this and much more as cases and killers of the present and past begin to dovetail in to one and the case becomes more complex with each new piece of evidence as they begin to doubt those closest to them...
1. Prologue

**Chapter 1**

Prologue

"What the Hell is going on?" Finn asked, terror and guilt striking in her deep eyes.

"The killer's got Morgan." Russell told her tightly, "And Ellie. He's got them both."

Finn watched as he pushed himself away from the desk, throwing his hands up in despair, radio still clenched between his brittle fingers that were coiled around it like sprung mouse traps, so tightly that it seemed he could shatter the hard black plastic shell around it.

She had known him for years. She knew the way he worked. The way he thought. What made him tick and what made him fall. She had seen him confront sadistic serial killers, violent rapists, even twisted paedophiles and barely bat an eyelid but if someone targeted his family, blood or otherwise, Hell mend them.

She looked around her, taking in the people that surrounded her. _Merchiston_ was hovering uncomfortably in the corner, fingers tapping away on his phone, looking lost and out of place.

Brass had his arms round his ex-wife, each consoling the other as best they could. It had been a long and bitter relationship and it had ended even more so. Their meeting again in Vegas was the equivalent of pouring salt on a recently re-opened wound that was twisted, knotted and scarred. None of that mattered. They knew none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered had just flickered out on the empty black laptop screen behind them. History meant nothing in the face of a future that threatened to undo it all.

She braced herself against the high desk in front of her, knuckles turning white as her fingers bit painfully in to the sharp edges of the desk, causing her eyes to water. Her hair fell forwards, obscuring her face but she removed her hands from the desk, swaying slightly on the spot, every muscle in her body contracted, as she raked her fingers through her hair, dragging the dense curls away from her face, forcing herself to look up.

She gaped at the computer screen.

"Russell..." she whispered softly, unable to tear her eyes away from it.

He had been pacing continually behind her but at the sound of her hushed, hollow request, he too turned to stare at the screen.

_That's not all he's got..._

They stared at each other,

"What the Hell is the son-of-a-bitch playing at now?" she breathed, "That can't be a coincidence, Russell he-"

"Finlay!" the shout of grief and fury echoed down the hall, preceding the man it belonged to,

Both Russell and Finn turned in time to see Ecklie barrelling furiously in to the room, jabbing a finger in to her chest as he snarled,

"What in the hell happened!?"

She backed away, understanding his anger but her tolerance only going so far, "Conrad I-"she began with forced calm,

"You were supposed to be watching her." He told her furiously, advancing on her,

"I was." She snapped, angrily pushing her away,

"Well then how did this happen?" he demanded,

"I don't know, I wasn't there." She told him hollowly, breathing hard and struggling to keep her composure,

"More's the pity." He hissed sardonically,

"This was not my fault." She spat, burning eyes seeking out his, "The wire cut. I couldn't see anything. I am not psychic."

"No psychic's got nothing to do with it," he bit back coldly; "You're just not competent."

"Don't you dare blame me for this." She snarled, pushing him back as she stepped furiously towards him, "This was her idea and it's a damn good thing because otherwise you would just have sat back and done _nothing _while he killed them. She was right, you have to make hard decisions and you can't because you would just have let him do whatever he wanted to those girls so long as it didn't affect you, you selfish bastard."

"That is going too far-"he snarled,

"No, no I don't think it is." She bit back, "The respect doesn't come with the title it comes with the job and you are _not _up to doing it."

"You won't have any reason to concern yourself with that in-" he began, stepping towards her, their faces now inches apart before Russell and Brass hastily stepped in to pull them apart,

"That's enough." Russell told them firmly, hands gently but firmly pinning her arm's to her side as she continued breathing too hard, glaring at Ecklie.

"He still has several girls, including Ellie, and Morgan." Brass told them both sharply, bringing them both back to their unpleasant reality, "_This _is not helpful. To anyone."

"No, no he's right, and we still have this to deal with." Russell added, grimly pointing at the strange little message on the screen.

It was written in simple, straight black characters, neatly stacked in a little row, the only blemishes on the clean white background that had obliterated the screen. The little cursor was flashing, with innocent temptation at the end of the ellipsis.

"What is it?" Ecklie demanded, staring at it,

"We have no idea." Finn told him tightly, "It appeared a few seconds before you did."

"Well...Let's see what he's got..." Russell said, leaning over her and tapping enter on the keyboard.

They all stood, watching the screen with morbid fascination as the little black letters dissolved from it, leaving nothing but the little flashing cursor behind. They all waited on tenterhooks and were about to suggest something else, when the cursor began creating words, flashing across the page and leaving its poisonous ink clinging to the screen in its wake.

_Mr Russell..._

They all turned to glance at him. He did not move, waiting to see what would follow.

_It's funny isn't it...The way the human mind works. Never in the same way. And never in a way we can predict or expect. Causing those closest to us to seem so alien to us. How those we think we know can tear everything away in one moment...How they can fall before our eyes from the Heavens, and land in the blackest Hell._

The little cursor paused suggestively here, allowing them all to take this in. They glanced around at each other, equally fascinated and fearful, both wanting to go on, and never wanting to know what came next.

_The first circle that calls them to the depths, of Limbo, both fell short of virtue when they failed to recognise their call. Fallen before the fall, their path paved with good intentions. Doomed neither to succumb to Hell but neither trusted to roam in the heavens. _

_And second comes that greatest of human trappings. Lust. The craving for something we want and yet ought not to have. Swept away by pleasure and emotion and other foolish human foibles. The need to be. To be something. To have something. A terrible act, to lie to those we love, in order to have those we cannot. _

_Gluttony. Self-indulgence. Uncontrolled, selfish longings for things we do not need. Do not need to live. Do not need to want. But simply have for the sake of simply that. _

_Greed. The malevolent need to surround yourself with pretty things. To use them. To abuse them. To take what you have and not only to appreciate it, but to exploit it in order to have more. Never satisfied with just one thing. Always needing more of the bright white light she calls justice and the one I call revenge. _

_Anger. Pulsing through her heart like poison. Consuming her mind. Clouding her thoughts. Over-taking her judgement and making her push them all away. All the ones who would care. All the ones who would help. Gone. Condemned. Mistrusted. Where she may find no joy in life or humans, in compassion or in love, only in anger can she find her calling and so only in anger will she find her sin and her punishment. _

_Hersey. The denial and the rejection. In terms of Christianity and Dante's circles, it was the rejection of God, of God's love. But in this case, it is not that at all that she has rejected. She rejected the love of her husband, the love of her friends, the love of any human being that tried to get close in favour of herself. Of being alone. Of embracing independence, solitude. She rejected the love of all, love itself, and for that there can be no redemption for her, for that path cannot be walked alone. _

_Seven. Violence. Something she was well accustomed to. She lived with it as a child, and chose it as an adult. To choose death as one's profession shows rather too much about their soul, that it is trapped with the ones she finds each day, never to return to her. Too much of her has been corrupted by this anger. It leaves nothing left for me say and nothing left for me to do but this._

_Eight. Fraud. Lies. She lied to you Mr Russell. She told you things that were not true and she watched as you believed them. She watched as you swallowed the lies that led her down the path of hypocrisy, promising to bring justice and instead bringing vengeance. _

_Treachery. Betrayal. Of those closest to us. The willing sacrifice of something dear to our hearts in order to obtain that which she held most dear...Her vengeance..._

The little cursor trailed off there, leaving them all feeling a little shell-shocked.

"The question is..." Finn began shakily, "Who is he referencing? At first I thought it was the girls, each individual victim, but there are links between each one, it sounds as though he's found someone who ticks all the boxes, who fits in all of the circles...His ultimate victim."

"OK..." Russell murmured quietly, "Then who?"

As if in answer to this, the letters on the screen before them dissolved to be replaced by another message,

_Amidst all the chaos in Sin City, you forgot the sinner who had taken flight. _

_And fly she did, straight in to the heart of my waiting nest._

_Ready and willing to make everything seem right._

_Even if it shall turn the heart black within her pretty chest._

"He's toying with us." Finn said quietly, staring at the bleak little poem on screen, "He doesn't have anything, he can't. It's all a distraction, to take away from Ellie and Morgan."

"What if he's not toying with us?" Russell said softly, "What if this isn't the game this is the objective?"

"What are you getting at?" Finn asked quietly, staring at Russell in surprise, thinking now that he knew more about this than she did, the concern that flickered behind the blue eyes was raw and real. She had learned how to read him after all these years and she knew that something was wrong.

"Russell..." she murmured quietly, "What is it?" she waited when he said nothing, hands closing around his arm, forcing him back to reality as she pressed softly, "Who is it?"

As if in answer to her question, the little cursor began flowing over the page once more

_That pretty sinner...What was her name now?_

"Russell." Finn pressed, a little more insistently, "What is going on? Who is he talking about? What is happening?"

She stood stock still, staring back at the screen as; once again the little flashing cursor on the screen answered her question for her and left them all standing staring in shock at the answer.

_Sara? Wasn't it?_


	2. On The Edge

**A/N: Alright, so, the plan at the moment is to alternate between what's going on at the lab and what's been happening with Sara (these are NOT happening at the same time I should point out) and flip between the two, a chapter each until they link together. This one will look at the beginnings of Sara's return to San Francisco and the story that's going to develop there. I hope you like it, leave a review if you can! **

**Chapter 2**

On The Edge

"You sure you want to do this?" he asked quietly, concern in the deep eyes behind the thick lenses,

"What do you mean?" she asked, anxiety and guilt fluttering in her stomach at this,

"I'm sure they can manage without you Sara." He told her softly, "I don't want you getting hurt here."

"Why would I-"she began, shrugging defensively, sure that he could not know but the nagging doubt was beginning to gnaw away at her already fraying nerves. She had already asked herself all of these questions and she wondered why he was now, wondered how much he could know.

"Look, I've done this before. You go back to something that was dead and buried long ago. It's not healthy Sara." He told her quietly, "I've been there. It doesn't do any good. It's toxic. I only want you to do this if you're sure."

"I'm sure." She told him pointedly, "_He_ is toxic. If I don't do this..." she hesitated before taking a deep breath and firmly telling herself as much as she was telling him, "He won't stop unless someone stops him."

"Why does that person have to be you though?" he asked eyes gently probing behind hers, trying to find the answers even as she attempted to suppress all evidence of them.

"It just..." she began before taking a long breath and attempting to explain herself a little better than 'it just has to be' that she felt would not quite cut it in this situation, "I was involved in the case last time. I have a good understanding of it, of him..."

"I'm sure the same could be said for a lot of people." He said softly, "It was a big investigation, with far-reaching consequences, and yet SFPD is calling you up and dragging you out. Seems to be a little more than you having a good understanding of the case..." he told her quietly,

"I want to do this Russell." She told him, an edge creeping in to her voice, "I have to." She paused a moment, lowering her eyes before she asked in a low voice, "How much do you know about this case? About Brinks?"

"Enough to know that he's dangerous." Russell said quietly, "And that I don't want him inside your head."

"Neither do I." She told him with a small smile, trying to reassure him.

He remained unconvinced.

"I don't know Sara...You've had a Hell of a few months, frankly I'm just waiting for something to finish you off." He said, shaking his head, "Which should probably have happened about three tragedies ago...I know you don't want to hear this but the truth hurts and right now, I think it would take a lot less than Lyle Brinks to finish you off right now and I don't want that Sara."

"Look, I am fine about this, really, about everything, I'm dealing with it, I'm fine."

"Alright, alright..." he said, "Humour me for a minute would you?" he said, pressing the tips of his fingers together and staring down severely at her as he began, "Hypothetically, if someone came up to you in the street and told them that, so far this year, they had, been forced to investigate a friend's murder; struggled with a long distance relationship; had someone from their past wander into their lives; had their marriage break down; spent their birthday dinner with a stranger who ended up being murdered; being accused of said murder and of cheating on the husband that no longer is because they were too damn stubborn and cagey to tell anyone what happened there; started taking alcohol and sleeping pill cocktails; had their mother admitted to hospital with alcohol poisoning-"

"OK, OK, I get it..." she said, holding up her hands, becoming increasingly uncomfortable with this conversation and now wishing she had simply feigned lateness and sprinted for the gate at the beginning of this conversation, "It's been a rough few months, I don't think anyone could deny that..." she said evenly,

"You think?" he demanded, raising his eyebrows. She pulled her eyes away from him, looking uncomfortable with this little heart-to-heart, "Listen Sara," he said gently, knowing he had potentially pushed her too far, knowing she had fairly strict limits when it came to things like this, "I know your too damn stubborn for any of this to go in properly," he said, raising a hand, as she gaped at him, "But I care about you Sara, wisely or not, I don't want you to burn yourself out with this, to feel that you have to do this because no-one else can. It's OK to take a step back sometimes, to let other people help, you know..."

"Yeah..." she murmured quietly, having heard something similar to this a little too often "I just...Can't with this case." She said, "It was the one that kept me up at night. The guy that got under my skin. The one that just kept pushing and playing games and taking chances, raising the stakes, playing with people's lives and not giving a damn about it. I, I can't just sit back and watch him to that again without at least trying to do something about it."

"OK, alright then." He said, drawing a deep sigh and knowing that he had never had a chance of changing her mind. He pulled her in to a rough, one-armed hug and told her gruffly, "Call me when you land."

She hesitated, not enjoying being smothered like this, before she realised that what she took to be smothering, he took as caring. Smiling a little at what she considered to be his over-protectiveness, she nodded slightly and said quietly, "I will do..."

She turned and left him in the middle of the hall while she passed through the gate. She walked straight from there and on to the plane, Russell's warnings about burnout still ringing in her ears.

Because she had been here before hadn't she? When the world had just decided that when it rained, it damn well poured. When she had become too attached to a case, to a suspect. And what had happened then? She pushed that from her mind. This was different.

There was far more at stake here than any of them knew. Than any of them could know. Guilt still gnawed on the edges of her conscience. She had lied to him. She had betrayed his trust. She now knew that she had had no choice. He had objected to this, in a roundabout, friendly-concern sort of way. She was fairly sure that, had she told him what was really going on, he would have hand-cuffed her to him and refused to let her out of his sight.

She appreciated everything he had done for her. They had become closer over the past few months, no matter how hard she had tried to prevent it. He seemed drawn to broken things, the healer, the protector. And, as he had pointed out, she had not so much been broken this year as she had been shattered. It had been unusual for her to have someone like that in her life. Who go out of their way to actively stop her from self-destructing, and not just be around to pick up the pieces afterwards. She loved Nick and Greg, nothing would change that, but they knew that she preferred to be left alone, and they would generally wait for her to come to them. Russell knew that as well. He simply chose to ignore it in favour of filling her with take-away food and motivational life quotes...

Still, for all that she had accepted him, had let him in, and had even gone as far as to trust him, there was a line that she would not cross and would not let herself be forced over either. One way or the other, this was happening. However much she despised herself, it had had to happen.

She landed in San Francisco a little over an hour later and clambered from the plane on to the familiar ground. She always found it strange returning to this place. Despite the fact she had been born and raised here and that, for a large part of her life, it had been the only place she had ever known, she still felt like an outsider. Out-of-place, unwelcome and unwanted, with demons chasing the shadows around every corner, clinging to the alleyways and the side-streets, snatching at her as she passed.

She could take herself from San Francisco so it seemed, but she could never take what San Francisco had done from herself...

She moved easily through the streets, remembering the familiar layout and finding herself quickly settling in to a rhythm as she walked among the streets again, treading the familiar path to the lab.

She walked in to the cool entryway, once again feeling out of place, ever the awkward peg that never quite fit in to the conventional hole. A steady trickle of people moved around her and she was about to take the dreaded walk to the reception desk to attempt to explain why she was here and why she did not need any help in being here, when she was mercifully saved by a shout from behind her.

"Sara Sidle!"

Without needing to turn around, she instantly recognised the voice and the light British twang that coloured it,

"Lacey." She said, turning and smiling.

"Come on." She said smoothly, leading them down the corridor and reminding Sara immediately why they had got on so well. No hugs and kisses or invites for lunch that neither of them intended to keep to, just good business.

She led them deep in to the bowls of the lab, and then turned up a little flight of stairs that instantly gave Sara cause for concern as they ascended them. She knew a little too well where this led.

Like her, Lacey had been something of an outsider within the SFPD. She had started out life as a CSI and had smoothly transitioned over in to PD after several close shaves where she had gone about and beyond the call of duty and had hungered for more than swabs and fingerprints. She had never really lost interest in them however and in recent years with budget cuts, she had been trapped in limbo between the two of them, both a cop and a CSI, something she liked.

Still, the lab had never really let Lacey go. If she had been a good criminalist she had been a great cop. Dissonant and distant with more than a slight resemblance to the Sherlock Holmes-type obsession. She had nothing but the puzzles, nothing but the cases, the criminals, the evidence. Whenever she had become wrapped in the grip of a case, it was the lab she returned to, the little attic area left untouched even after all these years to feed whichever obsession became hers next. She had a feeling that it had now been polluted by Lyle Brinks.

"Well..." Sara said, having her suspicions confirmed, "You've kept yourself busy..."

The little room had been turned in to a living representation of the inside of Lacey's head, always a dangerous place to get lost in, and so Sara thought as she ducked under a thin red thread that had been strung over her, connecting two pieces of evidence.

Lacey stood calmly in the centre of the giant ball of multicoloured wool she had wrapped the room in, with pins on boards that were arranged around the perimeter of the room, connecting things that she never would have before.

She took a deep breath and, after ducking under several more of the strings, came to stand in the centre of the room with Lacey, "Explain." She said smoothly, knowing there was no other way to do this.

"Each victim has a separate colour..." she began, tracing one with her fingers and leading it back to the picture of the first girl that had been attacked, "The pins colour that connects them denotes the connection, profile, time, place, evidence, MO..."

Sara nodded quietly, following the strings and making the connections as she talked.

"Where would you like to start?" she asked softly,

"Profile?" she offered,

"OK..." Sara said quietly, carefully moving around the room and studying each of the girls in turn, reminding herself of the horrific circumstances that had surrounded their first meeting, "Mostly tall, slender, dark hair, dark eyes..."

"Not all though..." Lacey pointed out softly, "Three of seventeen had lighter eyes, blue or green, and blond hair..." she said, tucking a thin lock of her own behind her ear as she explained, "He's a predator, a psychopath, and he's mostly predictable as a result..."

"But if it's a choice between not getting the right girl, and not getting any girl...He'll choose not getting the right one..." she said coldly, "He's an animal, a sadist..."

"Yes..." she said darkly, "He is..." she moved around to another board, "MO..." she said darkly,

"Varied between sadistic and plain Satanic." Sara hissed darkly,

"All of the victims were abducted and taken to motels on the outskirts of town..." Lacey began, stalking around the outside of the ring, eyes closed, feet instinctively knowing where to step in order to avoid walking in to her three dimensional mind map, showing the amount of time she had spent pacing this room, lost in thought, "Their hands and feet were bound with barbed wire..."

"Tearing the skin as they struggled..." Sara added softly,

"They were often blindfolded, with a cotton strip often, they were never recovered but fibres were recovered from them later, confirming their own accounts..."

"He would keep them in the dark. Intensify their fear. They don't know what's coming. They can only guess and let him toy with their imagination, use their own senses to torture them." Sara murmured, who remembered only too well being sat alone and afraid in the dark, to not know what was going on, to only be able to wait for what every other cell in your body knew was coming, was dreading coming...

"They were also gagged..."

"Beat up and shut up." Sara said hollowly, glancing around at the pictures of the tortured women that stared down at her, trapped forever in time in their Hell, caught in the stark images.

"He would generally strip them first; leave them in their underwear..."

"Letting them know _exactly _what he was going to do to them before he ever did..."

"He started teasing them, running the blade of a knife over their skin, telling them what he was going to do to them..."

"He took his time. Dragged it out. Enjoyed tormenting them. Torturing them. Terrifying them. Just as much as he enjoyed raping them..." she said, her voice taut,

"Cigarette burns on the arms..." Lacey continued absently, turning from one image to the next,

"Warming them up before the fun began..." Sara whispered darkly,

"A violent beating before the finale..."

"Often breaking bones...And of course, the wire shredding the wrists as they tried to get away..." Sara whispered, feeling her hands trace over her own wrists and then flutter over her ribs, feeling her heart beating too fast beneath them, before coming to rest on her arm, feeling the bone below snap in the midst of her own desperate bid for freedom.

She brought herself back to reality with a jolt at Lacey's next soft words,

"And then he raped them..."

"Yeah..." Sara said quietly, "And even after everything he'd already done to them...They still begged him to stop..." she whispered, her eyes clouding over with a faint film of bitter tears that clung to her eyes and tangled in her lashes but refused to fall. She had a little too much experience with this as well. The undying, futile optimism that tormented human nature...

"He then strangled them unconscious, placing his thumbs on the carotid arteries running down either side of the neck, cutting off the blood and oxygen supply to the brain for just long enough to cause a black out. He then usually untied them and dumped their naked bodies at the side of the road, or left them bound in the motels..."

"Left for dead. Beaten. Broken. And of no more use to him." Sara finished softly, feeling her throat contract as the first of the tears that had been gathering like a storm in her eyes,

Lacey continued to talk, going over some more of the specifics of exactly how their victims had been found and what had then happened but Sara had lost the ability to listen.

Her own head was currently filled with distant streams that blocked out everything else. The room around her began to dissolve, being replaced with other images from too many years ago. She swayed slightly on the spot as her legs gave out beneath her and she fell to her knees.

_She was in the dark, lying to a bed, she could not see a thing, her wrists were tightly bound. Someone was moving in the shadows around her. _

_She was huddled in a corner in a dusty little room, bare feet pressed against the rough, wooden floorboards. Her head was balanced on the knees she had brought up to rest against her chest. The little white dress she wore was splayed on the floor around her, like spilt milk, fanning out around her, becoming blackened and filthy from the floor around her. She watched in horror as the footsteps on the stairs announced his arrival and the dark shadows danced in the crack between the door and the bare floor beneath it._

_He stepped towards her, running his rough hands over her smooth, porcelain skin. She shivered. _

_The door opened and he stood, a towering silhouette, framed in it, bearing down upon her as she trembled and cowered against the wall._

_He placed his hands on her wrists, pressing her down against the mattress._

_He slipped inside the room, her name falling from his lips in a malevolent hiss. _

"Sara." She snapped her eyes open, finding herself sprawled on the bare wooden floorboards of the little attic, Lacey's hands on her wrists, large green eyes filled with concern, "Are you alright?" she asked softly, helping the other woman to her feet,

"Yeah..." she murmured softly, off the back of the other woman's sceptical look she added quickly, "Really, I'm OK it was just...It was nothing..." she said shaking her head, drawing away from the other woman and holding herself, hands gripping her elbows.

"I just..." she began hollowly, pacing and pitching back to the other woman, "How can he have done all of that, and _still_ they let him go?"


	3. Silence From The Lamb

**Chapter 3**

Silence From The Lamb

"Nick!" Greg called, panicked, "She's not here." He told him after checking the back of the car, "I told you we should have picked her up." He spat, unable to control his frustration,

"Where is she?" Nick demanded, gun still held over the driver, even though they both knew it was futile,

"Where is who?" he replied in a measured voice,

"The girl, where's the girl?" Nick pressed furiously, his desperation only heightening his emotions, knowing that he was probably telling the truth, she was long gone.

"I don't know what the Hell you're talking about." He spat, peeling himself from the front of the car and flipping round to angrily face Nick,

Nick snapped, lunging for him, snarling before they were pulled apart by uniformed officers.

"Russell." Greg tautly told the radio, knowing that they would be waiting with bated breath for the news to filter in, "Morgan's gone." Was all he could manage to tell them before switching the radio off and stalking back to the car, hearing Nick slam his hands on the hood of the car they had just pulled over.

He tossed the radio through the open window, running his hands through his hair in despair as he flattened himself against the roof, the cold metal pressing in to his skin, the only thing that tied him to reality as he closed his eyes and allowed the rush of images to overcome him.

He could still see her. The last image of her still plastered over his eyes. He had seen the look in her eyes as she stood there, vulnerable and scared. She had wanted them to pick her up; she too had known that something was amiss and now she was paying for it.

He heard someone walking up behind them and felt Nick's sympathetic hand on his shoulder as he said blankly,

"We have to process the car."

"You do it." He snapped, the adrenaline that had coursed through him as they had raced to pull over the SUV and his anticipation at finding Morgan had found no release with the relief that should have come upon finding her. Instead it stayed, coursing through his veins like a poison, making them swell and stretch, pressing against his skin and making it difficult to think or even to breathe, despite the open, deserted road and the fresh, cool air that wafted mockingly through his throat.

The only way he had of allowing it to pass from his system was through frustration and anger that he unwillingly took out on Nick,

"It's your fault that she's in this miss." He continued, pushing him back as he walked closer towards the other man, away from the car, pointing at him in accusation, "I told you that it didn't feel right. That we should have picked her up and you said no. You were more than happy to do the job for both of us then so go and do it now. You can process the car yourself."

"Come on Greg-" Nick began gently, trying to reason with him,

"No." He spat, "No 'come on Greg', you weren't so keen on taking my opinion on board back there were you?"

"It was the right thing to do-" he tried, his own feelings working their way in to his voice,

"What? It was right to just let her go off herself, again. To just let her walk straight in to his trap? Just so you could play the hero and rescue her and catch the killer all on your own?" Greg snarled, continuing to push him back,

"No, that's not fair Greg." Nick snapped, beginning to push back, "I care about just as much as you do. I was following our instructions-"

"'Our instructions' won't bring her back." Greg snapped,

"No, and neither will this!" Nick told him loudly, "We can argue about who was right and wrong later, when we've found her, but right now, she has to be our priority." They both saw the sense in this and were quiet for a moment, both breathing hard, until Nick said, "So what do you say? Are you going to help me process the car or not?"

"I'll get my kit from the back." Greg replied, tautly,

"Good man." Nick said quietly, turning grabbing his own from the back seat and heading back to the car, watching Greg for a moment as he braced himself against the car, taking a moment to collect himself. He allowed him that much.

Returning to the car, torch in hand, he glanced quickly in to the back of the car before he noticed the driver, face still plastered against the tinted glass window opposite him, leering at him, knowing full well that he could see him. Snapping, he turned and stalked back to him, deliberately catching him in the eyes with the beam of the torch as he demanded again, deliberately stalling on every word,

"Where is she?"

"I don't know." He said, imitating Nick,

"Sure you do." Nick snapped, "Because I watched her getting in to this car, same plates and everything, so even if she swapped cars, you still know who she was and that means you lied to me Jake, so I'll ask you again, where is she?"

"Not in the backseat." He smirked,

"Yes, thank you Inspector Clouseau, I can see that she's not in the car for myself thanks." Nick growled,

"I didn't say that she wasn't in the car." He quipped, eyes glinting maliciously, "I just said that she wasn't in the backseat..."

Snarling, Nick pushed himself away from him and met Greg on the other side of the car, murmuring tightly,

"Has anyone checked the trunk."

"No." Greg replied grimly,

They both made their way round to the back of the car and carefully ran his hands under the latch of the boot. Lifting it, he felt his heart jump in to his throat as he turned to look at Nick in horror.

Finn stared at the screen, feeling her colleagues tense around her, as shocked as she was by the little black words that had etched themselves on to the screen and their eyes alike,

_Sara? Wasn't it?_

The only person she could see who did not look entirely thrown by this was Russell. Concern had settled in behind his blue eyes but not total shock as the rest of them were currently being hypnotized by.

Before she could quietly take him aside and ask him what she knew he knew, Ecklie stepped in for her, tact, as ever, taking precedence in his enquiries,

"Sara?" he hissed, looking at the screen, "What does she have to do with all of this? Where is she?"

"I think she went up North." Russell told him tautly, "I gave her some time off a few days ago for personal reasons." He added quietly, not wanting to say more than he had to on the subject, aware of the audience he had and also aware of the lengths Sara had gone to to keep this quiet.

"You don't think that this could be involved though?" Ecklie asked concern flashing across his features, "That the killer could somehow have her, as well as Morgan and Ellie?"

"No, no..." Russell said distractedly, trying to keep himself together as he considered this for a moment, "This guy's a narcissist, he craves attention, fear...If he had her; we would know about it."

"OK, what about-" Ecklie began, but he was cut off as a young man in a crisp black suit, rounded the corner, hurried towards the door and, panting slightly, announced to the room,

"Sheriff Ecklie, sir? Could you come with me please? There's something that I need you to look at?"

"Can it wait?" he asked, raising an eyebrow and looking irritated,

"No sir, I'm sorry." He replied, eyes almost falling from his head as he attempted to wrestle with the idea of Ecklie not complying with what he had asked,

"Alright then..." he sighed, pushing himself away from the desk, "Keep me informed." He said deliberately, directing these words at Finn who grimaced slightly but said nothing.

Russell moved quietly to the door, making to head across the corridor to where Brass was now comforting his almost hysterical wife, to offer them his office and a little more privacy, but Finn caught his arm urgently and said in a soft whisper,

"What do you about Sara?"

"It's nothing Jules, I, he doesn't have her." He tried to brush her off quietly,

"Whether he has her or not, you're worried about her. Why? What did her time off for?"

Russell sighed, knowing that she knew him too well for him to be able to convincingly lie to her about this and that she cared too much about Sara to let this drop without a satisfactory explanation,

"Sara came to me and told me that a serial rapist she had helped put away in San Francisco, Lyle Brinks, was up for parole. She wanted to go and testify. I let her go, told her to take a few days to herself."

"Do you think he could be connected to this?" she asked softly,

"Honestly, I don't know..." he said, shaking his head, "He's toying with us, playing games."

"Have you spoken to her since she went up North?" Finn asked quietly,

"No, no I haven't actually..." Russell said, concern flashing across both of their faces at these words, "I'll call her." He said tautly,

He pressed the phone to his hear as he and Finn waited nervously for a reply,

"Hi this is Sara Sidle, I can't take your call right now but if you leave me a message I'll get back to you."

He shook his head tightly and hastily proceeded to leave a message that reflected the worry that had flared within him,

"Hey Sara, it's Russell, listen, do me a favour, and I know this will be hard for you but please, humour me, stay put until I can get in touch would you? Keep yourself safe and try and stay out of bother for a few days if you could." He paused before adding, "And could you call me when you get this please."

He hung up, glancing at Finn who drew a deep, steadying breath, forcing her composure to return to her as she said quietly,

"OK, wherever Sara's at, she's going to have to stay there and fend for herself. Without anything else to go on, there's nothing more we can do for her, so."

"Right, so..." he said quietly, pulling himself together and quickly taking charge once more, "Can you pull all of the CCTV cameras around the hotel, follow Morgan as far as you can..." he told her, already planning what he was going to do with the rest of his team, heading across the corridor and gently crossing the room to speak to Brass and Nancy, "Jim..."He murmured quietly, "If you two want some privacy...My office is free."

"Thanks Russell." He said grimly, voice grating, eyes still darting towards the blackened screen of the laptop, still perched innocently at the side of the room,

Russell followed as Brass carefully led his ex-wife through the lab, eyes full of sympathy and curiosity raked over them before they were enveloped by the warm darkness of Russell's office.

Brass settled a still shocked Nancy on the chair in the corner, allowing her to accept the tissue Russell offered her before taking the other man aside and murmuring grimly,

"Sara?"

Russell paused, knowing how much the other man cared about the tenacious brunette and deciding to be frank with him,

"Honestly Jim I don't know for sure. Last I heard she had arrived in San Francisco, she was going up to testify in a parole hearing. To the best of my knowledge, she's safe."

"But there's still a chance that she's not?" Brass breathed darkly,

"There's always a chance, you know that." Russell told him quietly, "But she's tough. And she's smart. She can look after herself."

"Yeah, you know that's true..." Brass said, "I would almost feel sorry for him." He added with a hint of black humour before lowering his voice and saying tautly, "But if he's hurt her as well..." he broke off, shaking his head, "When you find him." He said darkly, moving back towards Nancy as he spoke, "Keep him away from me."

Russell nodded and quietly backed from the room, giving them privacy as Brass laid a tentative hand on his ex-wife's shoulder and she threw it off, pitching forwards, eyes streaming, shaking her head, still clearly in shock.

"What is happening?" she breathed, her voice cracked and broken as she turned to him, watching Russell leave, gently closing the door behind him, "Why is this happening Jim? What has she done for this-"

"Hey, hey, that's enough." He told her sharply, "She hasn't done anything to'deserve' this. He's a psychopath. He doesn't need reason, or motive-"

"But he had opportunity didn't he?" she said, shaking her head, "He could get to her because she was vulnerable. Because she was alone. Because she didn't have anyone to look out for her. She didn't have you."

"Come on, Nance-" he began, shaking his head at this,

"No." She said tautly, shaking her head as she choked, "No, she was in Vegas. She was here. And she didn't come to you for help, for anything. She turned her back on you because you turned your back at her and she could forgive you for that and now she's-"

"No she's not, she's not anything. I will find her Nancy. I will bring her home. I promise I'll bring her home..." as he spoke the last words, he found her turning to him and falling in to his arms, choking on the weight of her tears, her anger evaporating and turning to grief and fear, wanting nothing more than to take comfort in him again and to believe him.

"Please...Please..." she whispered in to his shoulder, crushing the little white tissue Russell had given her in her hand, her surrender, her dying white flag to the cruel world.

"What did you get?" Russell asked Finn, walking from his office back to the AV-lab and sliding in to the room beside her,

"This." She replied tightly, playing the tape for him.

It did not take him long to notice what she had picked up on, sighing, he pulled the glasses from his face and ran a hand over his face saying,

"It's on a loop."

"Yep." She replied tautly, "Someone's messed with the tapes, probably our killer, so we've got nothing."

"Right..." he said quietly, catching sight of the journalist hovering outside and losing track of what he had been about to tell her, branching off grimly as he said, "Get rid of him, would you? I'm going to call Nick and Greg, see what they've got."

"Do you have any preference as to method?" she replied darkly, narrowing his eyes at him,

"No," Russell replied distractedly, adding lightly, "I'll help you bury him later."

Finn turned and stalked out in to the hallway almost walking in to Merchiston and without so much as a preliminary 'Hello', demanded sharply,

"Do you ever sleep?"

"Coming from the woman who hasn't even considered such a notion in what, going on six days now?"

"I'm a professional insomniac." She snapped tautly, placing her hands on her hips as she said, "Go home."

"I'm renting." He quipped smoothly,

"Get out." She countered easily, "There's nothing for you here tonight."

"Alright, alright, I get the message." He said, raising his hands in mock surrender as he backed away from her, "I'll see you in the morning."

"I'm looking forward to it already." She retorted coldly,

She sighed, shaking her head as he made his way out of the lab, bracing her hands in the small of her back and feeling herself deflate slightly, closing her eyes,

"Hey..." Russell murmured quietly, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder and causing her to look up at him, "I did tell you to get rid of him and not to verbally assault him right?"

"It achieves the same end." She said, shaking her head slightly and sighing as she added tightly, "Besides, he's had it coming all night; if I had had to spend another ten minutes with him I would have done more than 'verbally' assault him."

"You know he had a point, about your sleeping."

"So did I." She replied bluntly without looking at him,

"Yeah, maybe..." he murmured softly, "But it's not good for you Jules, I worry."

"It's fine." She said coolly, tensing as she sensed them going down this road again,

"No, it's not, look, maybe you should go to, try and-"

"A psychotic serial killer has kidnapped Brass' daughter and Morgan and you want me to go home and sleep?" she demanded, shaking her head in disbelief,

"You're no good to any of them if you keel over in the middle of a crime scene." He shot back,

"It's fine." She said again, cutting him off with another question before he could protest any more, "What did you get from Nick and Greg?"

Nick and Greg both stared at the empty jacket lying neatly on the floor of the boot before them, both of them recognising it as Morgan's. Nick started towards the smirking driver once again, snarling but Greg caught his arm, shining his torch in to the darkened space and pointing to the beginnings of a blood pool that was creeping out from beneath the fabric.

After taking several shots of the jacket in place, Nick gingerly lifted it out, placing it in to an evidence bag, revealing a large, and clearly fatal blood pool beneath. They both glanced at one another knowing what it meant for Morgan, guilt twisting their stomachs.

Greg allowed the beam of his torch to kiss up to the scarlet pool once more, starting as he noted the large, cut-out letters splashed across the surface of the crimson liquid,

_F.R.A.U.D _

On a whim, he grabbed a swab from his kit and dabbed the blood from the boot on to a spotting tile, feeling his something leap within his chest, attempting to drag him upwards for a moment as he showed Nick, telling him softly,

"Blood's not hers...It's not even human...Fake. Fraud."

"Alright then..." Nick said, nodding quietly.

They were interrupted by his phone.

"Russell?" he asked curtly, raising it to his ear. He listened for a moment before hastily summarising what had happened and then listening for a few more minutes, nodding as he hung up. In response to Greg's questioning look he said,

"Russell wants us to stay here and finish processing the car then join Finn at the hotel. He's sent her there to start processing."

"Is she lost?" Jake sneered, interrupting them as he caught sight of them once more his malicious eyes never leaving Nick's,

"Get him out of here." Nick snarled to the officer who was holding him against the car. He pulled him off and began to tug him towards the car but he dug his heels in, wanting to say his final piece before he was dragged away and his fun was spoilt. Grinning broadly at them both, eyes wide, tongue gently caressing the corner of his mouth he whispered in a sleek voice tinged with insanity,

"Poor little lost lamb...Whatever will become of her if she can't find her way home in time?"

A/N: As a little note now, I have no idea how long this is going to end up being, I'm hoping it will keep me occupied over the hiatus though ;) Leave a review if you can be bothered! Thanking you all :)


	4. Desire

**Chapter 3**

Desire

"_I just..." she began hollowly, pacing and pitching back to the other woman, "How can he have done all of that and still they let him go?"_

"I don't know Sara..." she murmured softly, not having any answers for her, leading her quietly to the little two-seater in the corner and settling her down as she continued to shiver, despite the stifling room.

She watched uncomfortably as the other woman pitched forwards, balancing on her elbows that she rested against her knees, head in hands as she gently rocked back and forth.

Sara placed the tips of her fingers together, pressing hard until they turned white, closing her eyes and pushing them against her eyelids, wincing as her body jerked in response to another flashback that was as short as it was violent. Lacey slipped her hand in to Sara's and allowed her to squeeze it as she took several short, sporadic breaths, trying to calm herself.

"Sara, what's going on?" she asked softly, knowing that there was more to this story than the other woman was letting on, having known her for too long and too well to think otherwise.

"Why didn't you call me?" she asked tightly, her streaming eyes burning with irritation,

"What-?" she began, withdrawing from the venom in the other woman's voice,

"When you knew he was going up for parole, why didn't you call me?"

"Why didn't I call you when a sadistic serial rapist who already has an irrational grudge against you to have you come up here and testify and put you in his crosshairs again? I don't know Sara, why would I do that?" she asked, fighting to keep her voice level,

"You should still have called me." She growled, "It was not your decision to make."

"No, but at least I made the right one." She told her in a soft voice,

"You should have trusted me to do the same." Sara told her harshly, getting to her feet and pushing herself away from the other woman, shaking her head,

"I didn't." She said bluntly, also getting to her feet, "Not with this case. Something about it got under your skin Sara, it wouldn't let you go and it's not the first thing you've not been able to say no to and regretted."

Sara took a deep breath, placing her hands on her hips as she said, "It's done now..." she whispered quietly, "There's nothing more to say...When exactly was he released?"

"Three weeks ago." Lacey replied evenly,

"So why did you call me now?" she asked hollowly,

"Did Becks not tell you?" She asked. When she shrugged noncommittally she pressed, "How much _did _he tell you?"

"Not much. It's Becks." She replied shrugging, shaking her head slightly as they shared a moment of quiet despair over their once shared supervisor.

"He started making demands, threats..." she told her quietly,

"What did he want?" Sara asked softly,

"You." Lacey told her bluntly,

Sara raised an eyebrow and said,

"And why did you decide to give him...Me?"

"He made things personal." Lacey shrugged evenly, "He went after something Becks cared about. Broke in to my apartment, was sitting waiting for me when I got home..."

"Wait, what?" Sara demanded, staring at her, nothing she had said being able to be processed, "He came after you?" she asked,

"Yeah." Lacey shrugged unconcerned, "Nothing happened."

"No, you just had, what was it now, a sadistic serial rapist, sitting in your kitchen."

"Actually, it was the bedroom." She retorted smoothly, the piercing green eyes staring coldly through her,

Lacey had always been distant removed and damn reckless, willing to throw herself in to everything form a fire fight to a burning building in the interests of the only thing that had ever made any sense to her, evidence. Cold hard facts, black and white absolutes. She rarely dealt with or identified with the victims. Did not bother understanding motives and asking the question 'why' seldom having any interest in it. The reasons that made her an incredible criminalist, made her hopeless with people. Lacey was not the one they had called upon when empathy and compassion had been required. That had fallen to Sara. They had balanced each other out well.

"Why?" Sara asked softly, "Why go after you?"

She fixed her with a cold green stare as she shrugged evenly, "I was sleeping with him."

Sara gaped at her. Lacey had had the unfortunate habit of dropping what other people considered bombshells and what she considered to be pebbles at inopportune moments with the delicacy and tact of a sledgehammer. It had earned her more than a few complaints from victim's families over the years.

She shrugged off Sara's astonishment easily, saying calmly, "It works."

"Well I'm very happy for you both." Sara told her, shaking her head.

She had never quite been able to grasp the logic of a 'friends with benefits' relationship. The closest she had come had been a one-night stand, but in that case, the anonymity and the length had been part of the attraction. A one-time itch scratched in one night, forgotten in the morning and never spoken of again. But in this case, she was right, it worked. They matched each other well.

Lacey was spared attempting to find some sort of socially accepted response to this as her phone rang. She pressed it to her ear, listened and hung up without so much as a 'hello' or 'goodbye' and then informed Sara with a tight smile,

"Speak of the Devil and he shall call." Her eyes danced slightly as she said, "You've been summoned."

Sara pushed in to the altogether too familiar office with a faint knock and a fainter smile tugging at the corners of her lips despite the beasts that yammered in her head at the sight of her old supervisor. In fifteen years, she doubted that a single hair on his head had altered. She knew that she was not stepping in to this office as the same person she had been sixteen years ago, but from the look of him; she could have been stepping in to it sixteen years ago.

"Sara Sidle..." he said in much the same tone Lacey had used with her earlier, looking her up and down and seeming to know everything that had happened to her since she had last sat opposite that desk in that single sweeping glance,

"It's been a while..." she said, slipping in to the seat across from him as Lacey took her usual perch on the outskirts of the conversation, neither in it nor out of it,

"You made up in overtime in this office while you were here Sidle." He told her affectionately, the voice deep but thick, as though there was permanently a lit cigarette burning away in its depths, "You were in this office more than you were out of it."

She bowed her head at this, hiding a smile at the truth contained within the affectionate little barb. They had butted heads often, usually on a case and usually how he was handling it.

"That's true...Seems some things don't change..." she paused a moment before glancing up at him, something stirring in the depths of her dark eyes as she asked, "What can I do for you?"

"How much has Lacey told you?" he asked, leaning back in his chair,

"Lacey?" Sara asked, raising her eyebrows and glancing between them with a smirk, glad to resume the banter they had shared those years ago. She had been closest to the two of them and they had been the only ones she had mourned the loss of in Vegas, especially in the first few months there when she had struggled to gel with her new team, "First name terms?" Becks had become infamous around the lab by calling everyone by their surnames, first names being reserved for intimacy only, a fact that was not lost on Sara, cementing what Lacey had told her earlier,

His eyebrow flicked slightly towards the ceiling slightly at this, lips parting a little as they darted towards Lacey, silently questioning the quip, an answer Lacey sleekly provided,

"She knows."

"Well of course she does." Becks replied lightly, leaning back in his chair, glinting black eyes fixed on Sara once more, "Now does she also know how to answer a simple question, or do we still shy away from anything that could potentially reveal something about ourselves?" he asked, surveying her over the tips of his fingers that had met in a little steeple upon his lips,

"That Brinks contacted you...That he wants to talk." She replied in a measured voice,

"You know he wants you?" he asked. The question was rhetorical, they both knew _exactly _why he wanted her, but she answered him anyway,

"He wants one of the things that's fuelled the desires of every human being on this planet at one time or another. Revenge."

"Except most vengeful human beings on this planet are not psychotic, sadistic serial rapists with grudges that have been burning holes in their psyche for the last sixteen years..." Becks pointed out smoothly, the little steeple of his fingers now running parallel to the desk, pointing at her, "You pissed him off Sara...Big time. And the only thing he's been thinking about whenever your name's popped in to his head has been that."

"Trust you Sara..." Lacey sighed from her corner, shaking her head as she asked quietly, "But how _exactly _did you piss this guy off? Why is it that he wants you so badly? There must have been over fifty cops, detectives, crims, _agents _swarming all over him on that case at one time or another...Why has he singled someone out? Why you?"

Sara's eyes flicked up momentarily towards Becks and he nodded almost imperceptibly. She took a deep breath and turned to Lacey,

_Becks stared in disgust at the corporate FBI agent, Caulfield as he told him in a crisp, oily voice "We would propose to use your CSI Sidle to get this guy. She matches the profile, strong, steady. She suits our interests well."_

"_She suits your interests?" He growled in a low voice, glaring with open dislike at Caulfield. He suddenly erupted out with, "Oh I'm sorry, I must have missed the moment where my CSI was transformed in to a large piece of meat overnight for you people to stick on a hook and dangle over a psychopath, forgive me."_

"_She'll be carefully monitored the entire time." _

"_How reassuring." He quipped darkly, eyes flashing towards Sara, "I don't even want to guess what you want to do about this..." he said, shaking his head tightly, knowing he was fighting a long lost battle with her and that he would be playing politics as opposed to chess on this one, _

"_I want to do it." She told him bluntly, confirming his suspicions, _

"_Of course you do." He told her, shaking his head, "You know what he'll do to you if he gets the chance, if your little government friends start covering their own asses and don't quite monitor you the entire time?" _

"_Yes." She told him tightly, "Because I know what he's done to the other seventeen victims he's already raped and tortured, and to the how many more he will do if we don't catch him." He opened his mouth to answer but she shook her head, knowing what he was going to say, "I'm done chasing evidence. I'm done trying to find things that aren't there, waiting for mistakes that won't be made because the only ones doing that are us. We have waited for too long, for far too long and it has taken too many women to get us to this point and it will cost us too many more women to get nothing. Something has to give..."_

"_That doesn't have to be you..." he told her softly, _

_A tense silence followed this little speech, being caught in the charged atmosphere that lingered in the room,_

"_It's your call." Sara told him flatly, eyes boring in to his, knowing that there was nothing more either of them could say _

_He drew a deep breath before saying "No, it's my blessing, but that's all it is. We both know it's not my call, right?" _

_She paused, crossing her arms protectively over her chest before she nodded tightly, agreeing, "Right." _

"_Could we have a minute agent?" he asked, voice dripping with sarcasm on the last word as he glared at Caulfield. _

"_Sure..." he said, glancing between them, "I'll wait outside." He said, slipping from the room and closing the door deliberately behind him before taking a few steps away from it, _

"_Listen Sara," Becks said, moving quickly around the other side of the desk and coming to stand opposite her as he placed his gentle hands on her shoulders, "I know that you want to do this, I know that you're going to do this, I respect that. But I need you to do more than respect me now Sara; I need you to understand me. I need you to understand them. They don't give a damn about you. They don't really give a damn about the victims or the suspect either. They give a damn about the job and the end and right now all you are is a means to that end, something they can put to use and then drop when they're done, when they have what they want. You are nothing to them, and they don't care what you are to anyone other than themselves, all you are is a pawn, a tool, a piece, a sacrifice. They won't care whose funeral they have to throw at the end of this as long as it's not their own. You're a good CSI with good instincts. Go with them. If something doesn't feel right it's not. They're not your friends and not your family and they don't have your back. If you feel alone, you are alone; if you feel vulnerable, you are vulnerable and its all by design..." he paused eyes boring in to hers searching for an effect before he released her and whispered in her ear before slipping out and rejoining Caulfield, "Be careful who you trust."_

_She sat quietly in the car, examining herself in the mirror. She had had smoky eyeliner draw long, sweeping black lines from her eyes, elongating them with delicate detail. Her lips had been painted a deep, blood red and glimmered in the pale moonlight outside. The white orb hung heavy in the sky over the sea, the faint smatterings of clouds around it unable to overcome its insistent pulse. _

"_Are you sure about this?" Becks asked softly, _

"_It's a little late for doubt and self-pity now isn't it?" she said, swinging her long legs from the car and planting them firmly in to the cold dirt outside._

_She stood quietly in the darkness, feeling the breeze whisper through the thin clothes she wore and snared at her loose velvet hair, flicking it over her shoulder, exposing her vulnerable porcelain flesh to the cool night. _

_She stood alone and isolated on the cliff top, feeling as though she were being stripped naked as the large black cars moved away around her, whipping up a little dust storm around her. When it cleared. She felt exposed, abandoned and vulnerable. _

_She did not have long to wait before she was grabbed from behind, wrapping strong, precise fingers around her neck, not leaving her long before the world dissolved around her, leaving her to fall limp and helpless in to his arms. _

She paused here, looking uncomfortable with this little narration and glancing at Lacey. She could not bring herself to go back over what had happened next. There was no need for it at any rate. She drew another long, deep breath and continued,

_She could feel her chest heaving as she forced her lungs to draw in more oxygen than they could hold, causing her ribs to burn, as they contracted in her terror, her heart flinging itself desperately against the brittle bones beneath the slick, sweat covered skin of her chest. _

_His rough hands traced slow circles on her stomach, turning it and causing her skin to crawl. She felt her throat contract as he gently removed the blindfold from around her head and watched as she blinked in response to the sudden assault the world launched on her newly returned senses. He leant forwards, causing every muscle in her body to contract and her skin to shrink around her bones, _

"_I want to see those beautiful black eyes of yours..."_

_As he spoke his hand fluttered up the pale, tender skin of her neck, as she withdrew from him, pressing against the cold metal frame behind her. _

_He was about to press his lips to her fragile skin when the door behind him was thrown open and she slumped back against the pillows as, unlike her terrified captor, she knew what an armed response team looked like._

_Becks hurried to her side, hastily picking away at her bindings with delicate fingers, _

"_Don't..." she managed to choke, "There could be evidence..." _

"_For once in your life Sara, forget about the evidence, and worry about what's behind it..." he told her softly, large eyes full of concern as they fixed on her. "We don't need it..." he told her quietly, finally managing to peel the wire away from where it had become embedded in her skin, "We've got him." He told her, relief flooding them both simultaneously as she slid from the bed and collapsed in to him as he murmured, "We've got him...You're OK..."_

"Well...That would do it." Lacey said, nodding and gathering her thin light hair in one hand, pulling it away from her face in a tight ball and releasing it until it unfurled once again like the wing of a bird and enveloped her back again as she released the tight breath she had been holding in her lungs. "He wants you because he blames you for having him arrested...That would make sense...He's a psychopath but not...Unnecessarily so. That's reassuring..." She pushed herself from the desk and began to pace around the edges of the room, mind working at a pace and a setting that the other two could not comprehend,

"What are his terms?" Sara asked quietly, looking straight at Becks, trying not to show the toll her recent little anecdote had taken on her,

"He wants you. Just you. No strings attached. He chooses the place and the time..."

"And I go running to him like a trained an obedient little puppy dog?" she asked, raising an eyebrow,

"That's about the size of it." Becks replied unevenly, running a hand over the rough stubble peppered over his chin,

"And if I don't show?"

"Starting in..." he checked his watch, "About forty five minutes, for every six hours that you delay, he'll provide us with a body in _exchange _for your sins and disobedience. You've got six hours to make a decision, or the bodies will start to fall."

A/N: I apologise for the late update guys, things have just sort of happened, blame life, seems to work most times :) Not much interest on the last chapter :( Any particular reason? Do you know like where it's going? How it's written? Let me know, I will try to do better! :)


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